Thomas J. Nevin | Tasmanian Prisoner Photographs 1870s-1880s: 11/01/2013

Mugshots removed: prisoner William FORD 1886

PRISONER MUGSHOTS Hobart Gaol 1880s-1890s
MUGSHOTS printed in oval mounts

Above: William Ford, prisoner, booking photographs taken on 27 July 1886 when he was "disposed of by the Supreme Court". On the left, a semi profile photograph without hat, unframed; on the right, torso facing front, gaze deflected down and to left, wearing hat, printed as a carte-de-visite in an oval mount .William Ford was photographed at the Hobart Gaol by Constable John Nevin, produced by Thomas J. Nevin for the Municipal Police Office, Hobart Town Hall. Both photographs were taken and printed within the conventions of 1870s commercial studio portraiture, typical of Nevin's earlier mugshots of Tasmanian convicts. In 1886 Thomas J. Nevin was working with police in both capacities as photographer and assistant bailiff to Detective Inspector Dorsett, noted in The Mercury, 11 August 1886.

POLICE RECORD 1886
The police gazette published details of William Ford's sentence on 20th August 1886. He was locally born ("native" meaning born in Tasmania), and 22 years old when he was sentenced on 1 July 1886 to five years for assault with intention to rob.

William Ford, 22 yrs old, sentence to 5 yrs in 1886
Source: Tasmania Reports of Crime Information for Police

POLICE RECORD 1892

William Ford was 27 years old when he was acquitted of burglary per police gazette, 23 February 1892.

POLICE RECORD 1893

Published on 4th August 1893, this police gazette notice recorded a new offence committed by William Ford on 16 May 1893. Now 29 years old and barely out of prison for serving out most of his sentence for the previous offense in 1886, he was sentenced this time to another six years for assault with intent to rob.

THE THREE RAP SHEETS
The photograph taken on incarceration in 1886, when William Ford was clean shaven and in prison clothing, was pasted to this blue form, the Hobart Gaol criminal sheet of offences, and then removed, to be included on the second criminal record dated 1893, together with copies of the sepia prints showing William Ford in street clothing.

William Ford's criminal record sheet dated 27 July 1886. The missing photograph taken from this sheet was pasted on the one below.
TAHO Ref: GD6719 Page 102

This Hobart Gaol record dated 25 July 1893, the day he was discharged from a sentence of five years, lists William Ford's offences and three mugshots on lower right, the first showing the prisoner clean shaven and in prisoner clothing.
Source: Archives Office Ref: GD63-1-1P216

Another criminal record sheet for William Ford, this one dated 27 November 1897. The last two entries show lengthy sentences of five and six years in 1886 and 1893. The photographs were taken for the police of William Ford in street clothing, printed in sepia and mounted within the typical conventions of commercial portraiture practiced by T. J. Nevin.
Source: Archives Office Tasmania Ref: GD12812 Page 292

Sourced from TAHO at Flickr

William Ford in street clothing, photographed for police by commercial photographer and government contractor T. J. Nevin. The printing of carte-de-visite portraits in an oval mount of prisoners as identification photographs was still a common format as late as the 1890s in Tasmania.

Tasmanian prisoner portraits from TAHO at Flickr

The Archives Office of Tasmania collection
Online until recently, the Archives Office of Tasmania digitized and displayed 92 copies of the carte-de-visite photographs of Tasmanian convicts held at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, originals of which which were exhibited at the QVMAG in the 1970s as the work of Thomas J. Nevin.

Webshots show the online records were captioned "Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin" (see the complete list here) and some were dated 1874 or earlier. In fact, few were taken at Port Arthur, and many were taken over a period of years in the 1870s-1880s. The date and place of the AOT caption reflects the error about Port Arthur as the place where all of these photographs were taken, made by an archivist in the early 1900s, probably by Edward Searle while working in John Watt Beattie at his museum and studio in Hobart between 1911-1916 where three panels of forty prisoner mugshots were offered for sale, among other convict memorabilia. Similarly, the date "1874" does not reflect actual judicial events in the prisoner's criminal career, i.e. whether he was photographed on sentencing, incarceration or discharge. The photographer attribution to Thomas J. Nevin, however, was and still is correct.

The majority - but not all - of the collection of Tasmanian prisoner photographs taken in the 1870s held at the Archives Office of Tasmania are black and white paper copies reproduced ca. 1985 from original cdvs held in the collection at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery.

TAHO Commons Collection at Flickr

Tasmanian convict + prison photos, a set by Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office on Flickr (Commons).

See the article on this site about the photograph of prisoner Hugh Cohen and another of Cohen by Nevin at the Mitchell Library SLNSW. The majority of mugshots in this collection were taken from the 1890s to the early 1900s. Some show the same prisoner photographed by Nevin in the 1870s but as a much older re-offender, eg. James Geary, originally photographed in 1874 and again in 1889. In addition to this selection of gaol mugshots on prisoner records , the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office holds over 90 copies and originals of Nevin's prisoner portraits, tagged at the National Library of Australia's Trove service.

Estrays at TAHO with APA citation
Recent 1870s originals uploaded by TAHO (improvements on the black and white copies from the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery) are these, with TAHO's original APA citations:

LINC Tasmania APA citation: "Alfred Doran, probably Albert Dorman, convict transported per Blenheim. Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin."

LINC Tasmania APA citation: "George Growsett, convict transported per Lady Montague.
Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin."
Read more about this prisoner here: Prisoner George GROWSETT 1860 and 1873

LINC Tasmania APA citation: "James Harrison, convict transported per Rodney.
Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin."
Read more about this prisoner here: Prisoner James HARRISON

Henry Smith - but unidentified by TAHO
LINC Tasmania APA citation: "Convict, transported per Rodney.
Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin."
Read more about this prisoner here: How misattribution can persist

LINC Tasmania APA citation: "James Smith, Convict transported per John Calvin.
Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin."

LINC Tasmania APA citation: "Robert West, convict transported per Gilmore.
Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin."

LINC Tasmania APA citation: "William Ryan, arrived free per City of Hobart, tried Launceston 1868.
Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin."
Read more about this prisoner here: Prisoner William RYAN wholesale forger at the TMAG

LINC Tasmania APA citation: "Richard Phillips, convict transported per Atlas.
Photograph taken at Port Arthur by Thomas Nevin."
Read more about this prisoner here: Prisoner Richard PHILLIPS 1874

RELATED POSTS main weblog

BIOGRAPHY: Professional photographer Thomas James Nevin snr (1842-1923) produced large numbers of stereographs and cartes-de-visite within his commercial practice, and prisoner identification photographs on government contract. His career spanned nearly three decades, from the early 1860s to the late 1880s. He was one of the first photographers to work with the police in Australia, along with Charles Nettleton (Victoria) and Frazer Crawford (South Australia). His Tasmanian prisoner mugshots are among the earliest to survive in public collections, viz. the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston; the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart; the Tasmanian Heritage and Archives Office, Hobart; the Port Arthur Historic Site, Tasman Peninsula; the National Library of Australia, Canberra; and the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Sydney. Thomas J. Nevin's stereographs and portraits are held in public and private collections in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, France and Switzerland.

Click here for KEY DATES 1842-1923

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THE MUGSHOTS:Thomas Nevin's extant prisoner identification prints and cartes-de-visite in oval mounts - "mugshots" - were taken between 1871 and 1888. The public collections consists of 350+ estrays from more than 2000 photographs taken of prisoners in Tasmania by Thomas Nevin and his brother Constable John Nevin. The National Library of Australia currently holds 87 photographs, the State Library of NSW holds 13 photographs, the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery holds 112 photographs, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery holds more than 50, and the Archives Office of Tasmania holds 10 originals and 100 or so paper copies of the QVMAG collections. A dozen or so are held in Private Collections.

DISCLAIMER: We have not voluntarily contributed to any publication which supports the misattribution of Nevin’s prisoner/convict photographs (300+ extant) to the non-photographer A.H. Boyd, nor do we condone any attempts by public institutions or private individuals to co-opt the work on these Nevin weblogs to apply the misattribution.

INDIGENOUS NOTICE: lutruwita/Tasmania/Van Diemen's Land (loo-tru-wee-ta) always was, always will be Aboriginal land.

This weblog pays respect to the ancestors and elders past, present, and emerging of the first Australian peoples and acknowledges their continued connection to land, sea and culture as the traditional custodians of this country.

Irish-born Thomas J. Nevin would have been keenly aware that the residence and photographic studio he occupied at No's 138-140 Elizabeth St. Hobart in the 1870s were built on nipaluna, the traditional lands of the palawa people. It is no small irony that today, the very same property, which is renumbered as No. 198 Elizabeth St. Hobart and is occupied by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, has returned to its traditional owners.

Looking east from the corner of Patrick St., the Royal Standard Hotel, 142 Elizabeth St. then T. J. Nevin’s studio and residence, 140-138 Elizabeth St. Hobart, 1870s

We also acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation as the traditional custodians of the City of Sydney, and the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, the traditional custodians of the Kamberri/Canberra region on whose lands this site is maintained.

PLEASE NOTE: images on this weblog represent deceased people, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Viewing such images may cause sadness and distress.

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Mugshots removed: prisoner William FORD 1886

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